Former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole has announced that he has stage four lung cancer.
In a statement released on Thursday, the 97-year-old former senator for Kansas said he would begin treatment on Monday.
“While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own,” he said.
Mr Dole represented Kansas from 1969 to 1996, before a White House run challenging incumbent president Bill Clinton.
In his 27 years in the Senate he spent three years as majority leader from 1985 to 1987, and 1995 to 1996, and led Republicans as minority leader in the intervening years.
Mr Dole’s turn at the top of his party’s presidential ticket in 1996 was preceded by being selected as Gerald Ford’s running mate in 1976 after Nelson Rockefeller withdrew.
He also briefly sought the Republican nomination in 1980 but dropped out early on in the race. In 1988 he ran again in the primaries but was defeated by then-vice president George HW Bush.
Though he retired from public office after the 1996 election, he remained in public life.
His wife, Elizabeth Dole, became a senator for North Carolina from 2003 to 2009. She had previously served in both the Reagan and Bush cabinets.
In the 2016 election, Mr Dole initially supported Jeb Bush before later being the only former Republican nominee to endorse Donald Trump.
In 2018 Senator Dole was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
